Streamlining software development for a leading social media company

7 minutes read
case-study
ClientNDA
IndustryMarketing

Our client, a renowned social media company, engages millions of users daily. For an enterprise of this magnitude, a high-functioning software build system is essential. However, their developers worked with outdated tools and cumbersome processes, hindering productivity and performance. This is when the company sought VirtusLab’s expertise to transition to a more effective build system and process, leading to elevated developer morale and productivity.

Download the success story as PDF

Take it with you to read later or to share it with your peers.Free download
case-study

The challenge 

The software engineers at our client's company were working with the build system, Pants, which failed to meet their needs, causing frustration and delays in the development process. The developers faced stability and performance issues with IntelliJ, their main IDE, limiting their productivity and the company's swift innovation due to the excessively long compile times. Additionally, the team required the integration of custom Python development practices. However, the current tools, such as VS Code caused support challenges. 

Our client recognized the need for updated tools that met their current needs and were agile enough to incorporate improvements seamlessly. The decision fell immediately on Bazel as a replacement, a build system celebrated for its speed and robustness. Given that the challenges were interconnected, they required a holistic solution to enhance the overall development experience for their engineers. At this crucial juncture, they sought assistance from VirtusLab.

The solution 

VirtusLab helped with the strategic migration to Bazel. This migration minimized disturbance to the company's operations. Our team provided enhanced IDE support, transforming IntelliJ into a more dependable developer environment. We configured VS Code to support Python development through tailored extensions and plugins, adhering to the company's specific build protocols.

Our commitment to the company's objectives led us to create IDE Probe, an automated testing framework, and Bazel IDE, a command-line utility, to simplify project setups. These pioneering solutions were integrated with the current technology stack to improve the developers' experience and efficiency.

We continually refined the build system's performance and integrated feedback to polish our solutions. This approach ensured compliance with the company's exacting standards and promoted ongoing enhancement.

The results 

Through our partnership, the client transitioned from a development environment that was once a friction to one that now propels innovation. The outcomes were striking:

  1. Improved IDE performance and developer experience due to faster compile times and better tooling.
  2. Received customized IDE integration with Bazel.
  3. Successful integration of Python support for developers and data scientists.
  4. Creation and integration of IDE Probe for automated testing.
  5. Migration of some developers to build tools like Bloop faster, drastically reducing wait times for code compilation.
  6. Continuing improvement in IDE stability and feature set.

Tech-stack

Build Systems: Pants, Bazel

IDEs: IntelliJ IDEA, Visual Studio Code

Languages: Scala, Python

Additional Tools: IDE Probe, Bazel IDE, Bloop

The tech-stack

Build Systems

Pants-logo
Bazel-logo

IDEs

VScode-logo
Intellij-logo

Languages

Scala
pythin-logo

Additional Tools

IDE-Probe
Bazel-logo
impure-logo-bloop

Take the first step to a sustained competitive edge for your business

Let's connect

VirtusLab's work has met the mark several times over, and their latest project is no exception. The team is efficient, hard-working, and trustworthy. Customers can expect a proactive team that drives results.

Stephen Rooke
Stephen RookeDirector of Software Development @ Extreme Reach

VirtusLab's engineers are truly Strapi extensions experts. Their knowledge and expertise in the area of Strapi plugins gave us the opportunity to lift our multi-brand CMS implementation to a different level.

facile logo
Leonardo PoddaEngineering Manager @ Facile.it

VirtusLab has been an incredible partner since the early development of Scala 3, essential to a mature and stable Scala 3 ecosystem.

Martin_Odersky
Martin OderskyHead of Programming Research Group @ EPFL

VirtusLab's strength is its knowledge of the latest trends and technologies for creating UIs and its ability to design complex applications. The VirtusLab team's in-depth knowledge, understanding, and experience of MIS systems have been invaluable to us in developing our product. The team is professional and delivers on time – we greatly appreciated this efficiency when working with them.

Michael_Grant
Michael GrantDirector of Development @ Cyber Sec Company